Thulium atom as new platform for quantum simulations and quantum information

Laser cooling and trapping became powerful tool enabling number of research activities and applications such as quantum simulation [1], quantum information processing [2], control of light propagation and switching of optical pulses [3] including single photon gates [4], metrology and testing drift of fundamental constants [5]. Recently rare earth elements attracted considerable attention due to the high orbital and magnetic moments. Such a systems allow low-field Feshabach resonances [6] enabling tunable in wide range interactions, relatively large dipole-dipole interactions. In particular, thulium atom has one hole in 4f shell therefore having orbital moment of 3 in the ground state, magnetic moment of 4 Bohr magnetons in ground state. While magnetic moment of the thulium atom is less than that of Erbium or Dysprosium [7, 8] simpler level structure, possibility to capture thulium atoms and the dipole trap at 532nm [9] make thulium atom an extremely attractive subject for quantum simulations and quantum information processing. In this contribution, I will present our efforts toward brining thulium atom to ultracold temperatures and quantum degeneracy as well as our study of collisional proprieties of thulium atom.